2012 Play-Action, Offense

We carry on our extensive look at the myriad tables Football Outsiders uses focusing today on play-action passes. Thanks to the meticulous and painstaking work of our game charters, we’re able to provide an in-depth look at how teams employ this offensive cornerstone and find out who utilizes it the best (and worst).

Continuing with the trend of recent years, play-action was on the rise in 2012, marking the fourth time in five years this has happened. After holding at 19 percent in 2010 and 2011, play-action jumped to 21 percent, thanks largely to the three highest play-action frequencies we’ve seen since we started charting it in 2005. A year after Houston set the new benchmark with a 33 percent clip, Washington (42 percent), Seattle (35 percent) and Minnesota (35 percent) all eclipsed that, with Carolina also matching Houston’s 33 percent mark. Houston, meanwhile regressed to 25 percent, likely due to the fact that T.J. Yates wasn’t under center for 150 dropbacks this year.

Looking at the top four teams, you see a trend: young, athletic quarterbacks who can beat defenses with their legs. Robert Griffin took over and completely transformed the Redskins’ offense, allowing Mike Shanahan to double his play-action frequency largely due to read-options. The same holds true for Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers, who saw their total jump from 20 percent to 33 percent. Russell Wilson‘s presence had a similar effect in Seattle, creating a nearly 60 percent increase in play-action use. The only outlier appears to be Christian Ponder, who is athletic but not on the same tier as that group. But with the rushing threat that Adrian Peterson presents in Minnesota, it’s no surprise to see the Vikings near the top of the list.

At the other end of the spectrum, we find the Dallas Cowboys. After ranking 30th in 2011, the Cowboys dropped down to last place, running play-action on just 11 percent of their plays. Given the Cowboys difficulty in the running game, rash of injuries, and inconsistent play on the line, it shocks no one to see Dallas bringing up the rear.

A slight surprise from the list comes in the form of Jacksonville, who went from seventh in 2011 to 30th in 2012. Credit coach Mike Mularkey for realizing how poor Blaine Gabbert’s play-action numbers were and cutting its use from 22 percent to just 15 percent. Of course, the Jaguars injury woes at running back could’ve been a contributing factor.

The list of teams that have been in the bottom 10 in percentage of play-action passes in each of the last two years: Dallas, Arizona, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, and the New York Giants.

As far as effectiveness in using play-action is concerned, Washington also takes the crown for that. With an incredible 66.7% DVOA, the Redskins easily topped the league, with no other team above 60%. With such a high DVOA, it’s not unexpected to find out that Washington also benefited the most from using it. With just a 5.0% DVOA on regular passes, the 61.6% DVOA increase was tops in the NFL. Only Arizona’s 60.7% increase coming close. Their 4.6 yards per play increase was also the highest mark by 15 percent, a strong credit to the threat of the read-option.

The team with the worst DVOA on play-action was the New York Jets. This seems like another obvious fit, given that the Jets finished with the third-worst passing offense by DVOA. Their play-action DVOA of -41.7% was 16 percentage points lower than their closest competitor, Cleveland. A big reason the Jets were so woeful is their league-leading nine interceptions on play-action, which came on only 85 pass attempts. Add in fumbles lost by both Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow and you have an utter calamity.

[ad placeholder 3]

The team that had the biggest negative DVOA difference was the previously-mentioned Browns. Considering that Cleveland’s DVOA on regular passes was 0.0%, this makes that accomplishment all the more impressive. The Browns quarterbacks committed eight turnovers during play-action, tied for the second-highest total in the league. Even when they kept possession of the ball, they were horrendous at accomplishing anything with it. They gave up 11 sacks (tied for fourth-most) and allowed defenses to have a league-high 63 percent success rate in stopping Cleveland’s offense on play-action.

Below is the play-action data from 2012 for all teams, in descending order starting with the teams that used the most play-action. The columns in green represent performance with play-action on actual passes only, with sacks, scrambles, and intentional grounding removed.

2012 Play-Action Pass Statistics, Offense

Offense

PA%

Yds/Play with PA

DVOA with PA

Yds/Pass with PA (Actual passes only)

DVOA with PA (Actual passes only)

Yds/Play no PA

DVOA no PA

Yds/Play Dif.

DVOA Dif.

WAS

42%

10.1

66.7%

10.5

72.1%

5.5

5.0%

4.6

61.6%

SEA

35%

8.2

47.7%

8.6

48.6%

6.4

36.5%

1.8

11.2%

MIN

35%

6.0

12.9%

6.2

12.4%

5.4

0.6%

0.6

12.3%

CAR

33%

8.9

40.0%

8.9

38.4%

6.2

10.4%

2.7

29.6%

DEN

29%

10.5

58.2%

10.6

59.0%

6.5

46.9%

4.0

11.3%

SF

27%

8.6

59.8%

8.4

57.3%

6.5

24.8%

2.1

34.9%

PHI

26%

6.3

-0.9%

6.2

-6.0%

5.8

2.3%

0.5

-3.2%

HOU

25%

7.6

21.8%

7.6

21.8%

6.4

7.3%

1.1

14.5%

CLE

25%

6.6

-25.7%

6.7

-25.7%

5.5

0.0%

1.0

-25.6%

BAL

24%

6.9

4.5%

6.8

-1.0%

6.3

13.9%

0.7

-9.4%

TB

24%

7.2

22.2%

7.1

19.0%

6.7

4.4%

0.5

17.7%

Offense

PA%

Yds/Play with PA

DVOA with PA

Yds/Pass with PA (Actual passes only)

DVOA with PA (Actual passes only)

Yds/Play no PA

DVOA no PA

Yds/Play Dif.

DVOA Dif.

NE

24%

8.8

55.7%

8.8

55.7%

6.6

55.2%

2.2

0.5%

STL

22%

7.9

24.7%

8.1

25.4%

5.6

2.8%

2.3

21.9%

OAK

20%

5.6

-7.3%

5.6

-8.8%

6.6

12.1%

-1.0

-19.4%

KC

20%

6.7

-25.2%

6.7

-31.4%

5.3

-28.7%

1.4

3.5%

NO

20%

8.1

17.8%

8.1

17.8%

6.9

26.5%

1.2

-8.7%

BUF

19%

7.1

16.2%

7.2

15.9%

5.9

-5.1%

1.2

21.3%

GB

19%

7.6

30.3%

8.0

30.5%

6.7

45.5%

0.9

-15.1%

SD

18%

5.6

-2.0%

5.6

-0.9%

5.8

9.0%

-0.2

-11.0%

TEN

18%

6.5

-2.0%

6.6

-7.4%

5.8

-12.9%

0.6

10.9%

IND

18%

7.9

26.3%

7.9

19.7%

6.1

2.0%

1.7

24.4%

PIT

18%

7.4

31.8%

7.4

32.1%

6.2

10.6%

1.2

21.1%

Offense

PA%

Yds/Play with PA

DVOA with PA

Yds/Pass with PA (Actual passes only)

DVOA with PA (Actual passes only)

Yds/Play no PA

DVOA no PA

Yds/Play Dif.

DVOA Dif.

ATL

17%

8.3

44.1%

8.4

43.8%

6.8

21.4%

1.6

22.7%

NYJ

17%

6.3

-41.7%

6.4

-43.9%

5.3

-19.2%

1.1

-22.6%

CIN

17%

6.9

1.2%

7.0

0.6%

6.1

8.8%

0.8

-7.6%

NYG

17%

6.8

10.3%

6.9

10.1%

7.1

25.1%

-0.2

-14.8%

CHI

17%

6.1

19.2%

5.9

15.5%

6.0

-2.0%

0.1

21.2%

DET

16%

6.7

9.1%

6.8

8.6%

6.5

29.4%

0.2

-20.3%

MIA

16%

9.0

46.6%

9.0

45.1%

5.7

-10.4%

3.2

57.0%

JAC

15%

5.8

-7.7%

5.7

-11.9%

5.4

-13.4%

0.3

5.7%

ARI

13%

7.3

24.1%

7.1

20.6%

4.3

-36.6%

3.0

60.7%

DAL

11%

8.8

53.0%

8.8

53.0%

6.7

23.0%

2.1

30.0%

NFL

21%

7.6

21.9%

7.6

20.6%

6.1

9.8%

1.5

12.1%

Acknowledgement to ESPN Stats and Information Group; as part of teaming up with ESPN Stats and Info to streamline our game charting this season, our data on which pass plays had play-action comes from them.

Huge positive difference for Miami, I wonder if Tannehill's greenness had something to do with them not using play action as much, and if they will use it more this year. And if so, will they be as effective as they were last year. Or not "as" effective, but much more effective?

We probably haven't teased out enough variables to determine what exactly contributes to pA effectiveness. Is it mostly the qb or is it the run game? do you need certain receivers or a certain scheme? etc etc.

This seems like a stat for which DVOA isn't very useful. Turnovers make a big difference to the DVOA number, and I'm not convinced they tell us anything about a team's effectiveness at using play-action.

Yards per play is better, and significantly there are only three teams with a negative yards-per-play differential off play-action, compared with 10 teams that have a negative DVOA differential. Oakland is the true odd case: 7th in yards-per-play without play-action, joint last with play-action.

Interesting that the Pats have only 0.5% different PA to no PA while running it 25% of plays. That must be a function of an immobile QB. We'll see how that changes this year with Brady having no one to throw to.

Easily the lowest differential of any team. I'm guessing it's more a function of their top-ranked non-PA than Brady's lack of foot speed - they were 4th best in PA rating. As you said, we'll see how things work out if the Pats have to return to a Smurf receiving corps.

Not a lot of mention about Denver’s success with Play Action—and I would expect that those numbers will only go up this year. With Denver looking to speed up the offense and the additions of Wes Welker and Monte Ball, Manning is going to have a lot of options with play action.

One thing that might be worth considering here is what teams do when they are running play-action. The Giants (who at least used to be a good play-action team) seem, at least on my subjective recall, to use play-action for "shot" plays a lot more. Other teams seem to use it much more for the short game, dropping the ball just over linebackers sucked in for the run.

Regardless of formation or offense type, there needs to be some kind of handoff motion for a play to be marked as PA. That should cover pretty much all read option plays; of course you can run pretty much anything out of the pistol, so there can be a number of pass plays that are not PA.

It's why all these coaches that just compare read option plays to the wildcat are just blowin smoke. They have no answers for it so all they can do is make thinly veiled threats at Offenses saying their gonna knock the QB's out of the game if they use it. The problem with the wildcat is that all you could do is run out of it and there were no passing options except a RB or WR throwing a pass to a uncovered receiver. Kyle Shanahan basically threw down the gauntlet to old heads like Gunther Cunningham saying the Redskins will not only keep using the read option but will expand on it.